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Rakesh Sarna, MD and CEO of the Indian Hotels Company ltd (IHCL) was faced with the challenge of leading and embedding changes in IHCL to turnaround its trajectory. IHCL and its subsidiaries, headquartered in India, were a venerable hotel chain, collectively known as Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, and colloquially referred to as Taj Hotels. Taj Hotels, revered across India for their values and renowned for their hospitality, had been plagued with performance challenges since Dec’08. It was August 2016, nearly two years since Sarna had been recruited from the Hyatt Hotels Corporation, with a mandate to revive the flagging fortunes of Taj Hotels. Having introduced a number of changes, Sarna reflects on progress made and next steps required.

Headquartered in Hangzhou (China), Ant Financial has grown into a fintech “Unicorn.” The fintech empire that the company established spanned verticals such as mobile and online payment (Alipay), money market fund (Yu’e Bao), wealth management (Ant Fortune), digital-only banking (MYbank), credit scoring (Zhima Credit), and consumer credit portal (Ant Credit Pay) among others. After another sales record during the 2016 11.11 Global Shopping Festival along with Alibaba, Long Chen, chief strategy officer of Ant Financial, was contemplating the various opportunities and challenges associated with the firm’s international expansion, inclusive finance in rural regions, and regulatory uncertainties.

On March 29, 2017, Wang Hongzhang, Chairman of China Construction Bank, was considering the next steps in the bank’s transformation. In the challenging backdrop of economic slowdown, deep structure adjustment, interest rate liberalization, entry of financial players from the Fintech sector and rising customer demands for better value and service, the bank started transformation in 2012 towards integration, multi-functional service, intensive development, innovative bank and smart bank. Despite the progress the bank had achieved, Wang wondered whether the transformation of the bank had positioned it well to cope with the current and future challenges that the Chinese banking sector faced.